Dirty Laundry

​My wife and I go through phases where we will find a TV show we like and then binge watch the thing until we have watched every last episode. Normally, this does not pose any health problems. However, recently, we’ve started watching a program that has my doctor telling me I now have high cholesterol.

We can watch something like Fixer Upper and, while it may make me want to clean out the garage (I’ve yet to get around to it) it doesn’t make me want to buy a dilapidated house and spend a small fortune renovating.

Or, my wife and I can watch an entire season of The Voice and even though I do end up buying some music I don’t feel the need to break out my guitar and hit the local open mic night. (Okay, maybe it makes me want to do that a little but not so much that I allow it to happen).

Have I mentioned I’m the most suggestible human being on the planet? And that all advertising in the world is designed for me, personally? This might sound egocentric but the advertising people know it’s true because I’m the kind of person who can be minding his own business, driving down the highway, and out of the blue I will get a craving for a Big Mac simply because I glanced at a Big Mac billboard. And I don’t even eat Big Macs… very much.

Recently, however, my wife and I have been gorging—literally and figuratively—on the Great British Bake Off. Watching this show is like staring into an amazing bakery, pressing your nose against the window, and desperately wanting to eat everything you see. It has become imperative that we have some form of cake, pie, cookie, macaroon, or muffin available so that when we watch the show and the inevitable cravings come on, we can happily munch along with the judges and contestants. We have been watching past seasons now for a couple of months now and, I kid you not, I have put on a good ten pounds. Ten pounds I’d taken great pains to lose recently.

It’s both depressing and revealing and I’m not sure what to do about it. I’m certainly not going to stop watching the show. It’s about as addictive as the sugar they sprinkle on the top of a sweet bun. I’m thinking it might be time to swap out the La-Z-Boy couch for a couple of treadmills. I’ve recently started writing standing up so it might be time to start watching my baking shows while doing some for of exercise as well. Walking along, watching home bakers carefully kneed and proof their dough, all the while biting into a piece of my wife’s delicious coffee cake.